Home » United Kingdom » England

November 1998

England

Jvi
2004-09-14 11:27:34

Displayed times (last time: )

a visit. Many of the towers were blown over by the parliamentarians, Cromwell's troops during the Civil War but there is still a lot of the castle left and the views are spectacular.

Old Wardour castle was a short trip from the A30 road on very narrow roads, probably too small for the tours. This was an excellent castle to bring children as you could walk around and most of the walls were intact so it was easy to see what it must have looked like before the English Civil War. There are plenty of stairs and passages to explore. There was small fee and the man who took our money had probably not seen people for weeks, he was determined to tell us everything about the castle. It seems that the Lord of the Castle went off to fight on the side of King Charles I during the English Civil war and while he was gone Cromwell's troops took the castle. The Lady of the Castle tried to hold them off but could not. When the Lord returned he laid siege and decided to blow a hole in the side of the castle with gunpowder. He was unfamiliar with the power of the gunpowder and blew up one third of the castle. The remaining two thirds is worth a visit. Afterwards, we stopped in Shaftesbury for tea. We drove up to Oxford for the day and took a walking tour from the Tourist Office. It was very interesting but we were not really thrilled with Oxford. The colleges were nice and we were able to see a lot but Oxford is a big city, we prefer small towns. This was the first walking tour we had taken and it was worth it. We'll have to try them more often. We took these two pictures in the college where Lawrence of Arabia attended his undergraduate years, Picture-1 and Picture-2 were taken in the college dining room.

We stocked up on Cheese the morning of our departure, drove to Heathrow very refreshed and flew home.

This travelogue is short because the original was lost, computer crash.

Copyright John Vittoe

All rights reserved.

Please visit my website